I tell you, you unbelievers have been blown away, but you are too blind and committed to Millionsofyearsianism to see it. In the name of the One True God, my mission shall be a relentless pursuit of the truth and a tireless walk through the points of my Creator God Hypothesis. You Atheist evilutionists have been crushed like sand fleas by the camel, and run begging for God's mercy. As I have been completely honest and up front, admitting my errors when I make them, but I have made none.

--------------"Science is what got us to the humble place weâ€™re at, and what hard-won progress we might realize comes from science, with ID completely flaccid, religious apologetics bitching from the sidelines." - Eigenstate at UD

--------------The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

The NZ Kea is renowned for it's complete disregard for the proper treatment of cars and camping equipment. While I was last visiting my home country, we parked at Franz Joseph Glacier on the West Coast of the South Island.A flock of friendly and cheeky Keas permanently inhabit the car park and scrounge for food. They break car antennas, pull out the rubber door seals with their beaks, are quite fearless, behave quite comically and seem to have real attitude. They will walk right up to you and peck at your shoes if you let them. I have heard stories of campers returning to their camp sites in the mountains to find their tents and sleeping bags shredded.

This from wiki.

Quote

They (Kea) are probably one of the most active, intelligent, destructive and playful parrots, making them prone to behavioral problems and boredom in captivity if not well cared for.

--------------The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

Dave, how far do you think Drosophila would be expected to evolve in, say, 150 years, given that they probably haven't changed much in the past 150 million years? Do you honestly think anyone other than an ignorant creationist is surprised or dumbfounded by the fact that macroevolution (meaning, as you apparently mean it, evolution beyond the genus level) has never been observed in the lab? "Why Is a Fly Not a Horse" has got to be one of the dumbest questions ever asked by a creationist. Any highschool biology student should be able to tell you why a fly cannot evolve into a horse.

And again, it's clear you actually believe (without, evidently, even realizing it) in fantastically accelerated macroevolution, whereby a single monkey "kind" evolves in a few millennia into the over 200 species that currently exist. How many "kinds" do you suppose there were on Noah's alleged ark? There are at least 10,000,000 different species of organisms currently in existence, what's left of probably a hundred times that number that have ever existed, and you evidently believe they've all evolved from—how many? yet another question you cannot answer—100? 1,000? 10,000—kinds?

This is just one of multiple examples of how incoherent, internally inconsistent and irredeemably self-contradictory your "hypothesis" really is. In order for one to believe your "hypothesis," one would have to believe that half a dozen or more mutually exclusive things would all be true.

And you somehow think your "hypothesis" is a "better" explanation for observation than orthodox theories. Obviously you have a very convoluted understanding of what the term "better" means.

--------------2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity

"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

Quote 18) You have been shown that the sedimentary layers of the Grand Staircase have been dated by fossils, not radiometrically as we are led to believe

uh, didn't dunderhead at one point (several, actually), agree that 2, no 5, no 3 (yeah, that's the ticket) layers had actually been radiometrically dated, and try to claim that since only "3" layers had been dated, this somehow supported his suppostions in some illogical fashion?

so hasn't he already countered 18 all by himself?

not that he hasn't spent lots of time contradicting himself all over the place, but that was the first to jump to mind.

A stalagmite normally grows 0.1 to 0.3 mm per years in moderate climate zones. This means a step of 20cm needed 2,000 years of continual growth to form

Not that yet another method is needed to date teh earth older then 6000 years, but here it is.

So, 2k years = 20cm. Therefore there are no 61cm long stalagmite's then Dave? As they have not yet had time to form, right?Is that something you'd agree with? If not, why not?

Quite coincidentally, I visited Meramec Caverns in Stanton, MO this weekend. The tour, which only did a brief flyby of anything that smelled of science, was interesting nonetheless. Near the end of the tour, we were shown a stalagmite that was 28 feet tall and 500 feet around at it's base. The only reason it wasn't taller was that it basically ran into ceiling of the chamber it formed in. I'm not particularly motivated to do the math of how long that would take to form, but at 0.1 to 0.3 mm per year, it must be somewhere around "a whole bunch!"

Stanton is only about a 4-5 hour drive from Kansas City, if anyone (*ahem*) wants to see for themselves.

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

I see that Faid has adopted the technique of trying to refute the conclusions of a DIFFERENT Snelling paper (1999) than the one I am currently discussing while trying to make people think he is refuting the 2003 paper. Hmmm ... interesting technique, Faid. I'll be happy to look into the 1999 paper, but kindly don't confuse my readers by pretending you are refuting the 2003 paper with supposed refutations of a 1999 paper.

JonF is still yelling "Fraud, fraud" while failing to see how completely irrelevant and silly his fraud claim is. But alas ... what's a Darwinist to do? Honest dealing with facts is impossible for many of them ... so that leaves goofy techniques such as yelling "Fraud" just for the fun of it.

Thanks *ahem* for the hint about the Meramec Caverns. I'm always looking for fun stuff to do with the kids ... I'll go see the stalagtites.

I'm headed to the lake for two days ... sorry to disappoint! I know this will mean a quite boring Wednesday and Thursday for you!

I'll be back at it Friday morning and I will show you in detail why Snelling is right on and ...

JonF is, once again ... ALL WET!

--------------A DILEMMA FOR THE COMMITTED NATURALIST
A Hi-tech alien spaceship lands on earth ... DESIGNED.
A Hi-tech alien rotary motor found in a cell ... NOT DESIGNED.
http://afdave.wordpress.com/....ess.com

JonF is still yelling "Fraud, fraud" while failing to see how completely irrelevant and silly his fraud claim is. But alas ... what's a Darwinist to do? Honest dealing with facts is impossible for many of them ... so that leaves goofy techniques such as yelling "Fraud" just for the fun of it.

Dave, why is it that everyone else here can see exactly what JonF is saying, understands his argument perfectly, and can see why it completely invalidates Snelling's argument? Is there some particular reason for your blind spot?

Of course there is: it's impossible to make a man understand something when his religious beliefs depend on his not understanding it.

And have you noticed a pattern here with your attempts to refute every single radiometric date ever obtained? Have you noticed that they all involve using a radiometric dating technique in conditions under which said technique is already known not to work? Why do you suppose that is, Dave?

And in the meantime, the number of questions your "hypothesis" cannot answer grows ominously.

--------------2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity

"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

I see that Faid has adopted the technique of trying to refute the conclusions of a DIFFERENT Snelling paper (1999) than the one I am currently discussing while trying to make people think he is refuting the 2003 paper.

They are the same samples in both "papers".

--------------

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

Many Jews were in comfortable oblivion about Hitler ... until it was too late.Many scientists will persist in comfortable oblivion about their Creator ... until it is too late.

ShitForBrainsDave destroys every irony meter within a cubic parsec with:

Quote

But alas ... what's a Darwinist to do? Honest dealing with facts is impossible for many of them ...

Like the way you "honestly" dealt with fact of the two dozen sequentially buried forests in Yellowstone Davie?

Or the way you "honestly" dealt with the facts about C14 calibration?

Or the way you "honestly" dealt with time for the formation of limestone?

Davie - Everyone here knows you are a scientific nincompoop and a compulsive liar who says whatever sounds good just to prop up your Zeppelin ego. Why do you even bother pretending to be anything else?

--------------"Science is what got us to the humble place weâ€™re at, and what hard-won progress we might realize comes from science, with ID completely flaccid, religious apologetics bitching from the sidelines." - Eigenstate at UD

JonF is still yelling "Fraud, fraud" while failing to see how completely irrelevant and silly his fraud claim is. But alas ... what's a Darwinist to do? Honest dealing with facts is impossible for many of them ... so that leaves goofy techniques such as yelling "Fraud" just for the fun of it.

Yes, it's "goofy" to say that old rocks mixed with young rock will result in a wrong date for the young rock...

It's goofy to tell that to AirHeadDave the PantyDancer, who admits he knows virtually nothing about the issue.

It's goofier still to mention it to AirHead when AirHead already "knows" the date MUST be "right" because AirHead thinks he speaks for God.

By the way, genius, what's a "stalagtite?" Is that related to stalagmites and stalactites? (hint: "g" for "ground" and "c' for "ceiling" ) Idiot.

Snelling and friends have recognized that recent and historic lavas, particularly on oceanic islands, yield incredibly old radioisotopic “ages”. They cite 17 studies in the RATE Book 2000, including one as late as 1997 by Esser, et. al.) (0.7 Ma to 700 Ma on historic flows! They recognized it and confirmed it with their own samples. There is no fraud here, JonF. Why are you quibbling about xenoliths? Would the "ages" have come out younger if xenoliths were excluded? (BTW--is is not even conclusive that the supposed xenoliths are actually xenoliths at all) Maybe. Maybe not. Do we care in this case? No. Because we are not trying to get a precise "date" of creation of the lava. We are showing that the lava "dates" are not dates at all, but are merely a reflection of their parent material--the mantle source. But you want to exclude the xeonliths? OK Fine. Exclude the xenoliths. What would they have gotten then? Answer: Probably not much different. Why? Well look at the 17 other studies cited in the RATE 2000 Book. Most of them are from historic lava flows and they report everything from 0.7 Ma to 700 Ma!! Did they exclude xenoliths? Some did. Some did not.

Look here. JonF is just trying to confuse people. The truth is that there probably ARE NO xenoliths in the Snelling samples. It's debatable. If they are, so what? All this means is that instead of the samples being dated at 724.5 to 1453.3 Ma, the numbers would have been somewhat different.

But the thing is ... Millionsofyearianism is shown once again to be a joke ... either way!! Fine. Let's give you a really long rope and say the samples would have been dated at 10 Ma with the "xenoliths" excluded. You still hang yourself by the neck!

Now ... would you please repent and quit lying to schoolchildren?

Thanks again in advance!

****************************FAID PROVES TO THE WORLD THAT HE DOESN'T EVEN READ THE PAPERS HE IS ATTEMPTING TO REFUTE.

Faid...

Quote

In short, Dr. Snelling 'evaluated' the K-Ar test using samples that he, not to mention everybody else in the business, would have known would produce bad results and then, on this basis alone, gave a failing grade to the K-Ar Method as a whole. But all he has really done is to generate another piece of evidence to the effect that Geochron cannot do what they explicitly say they cannot do.Dr. S. claims that the method as a whole is a failure and should be discarded, but this claim ignores large numbers of successful determinations on really old rocks that are in close agreement with other radiodating methods.From these considerations it is clear that Dr Snelling's "evaluation" is nothing more than the sheerest self-serving drivel.

Faid, my friend. Read Snelling's paper. His point is NOT to discredit K-Ar dating. Look at the title again ...

THE RELEVANCE OF Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd AND Pb-Pb ISOTOPE SYSTEMATICS TO ELUCIDATION OF THE GENESIS AND HISTORY OF RECENT ANDESITE FLOWS AT MT NGAURUHOE, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR RADIOISOTOPIC DATING

Now do you see anything about K-Ar dating anywhere there? Do you see anything in his whole paper where he criticised the K-Ar test? That's old news, friend. He's not criticising K-Ar here.

In fact, here's the relevant section from Snelling's paper ...

Quote

K-Ar ISOTOPE SYSTEMATICS Snelling [60] reported having obtained K-Ar model “ages” for these same samples of recent Mt Ngauruhoe andesite flows of <0.27 to 3.5 Ma. These “dates” could not be reproduced, even from splits of the same samples from the same flow. Indeed, Ar contamination at such low concentration levels is often expected, but this problem of excess 40Ar* in historic lava flows is still well documented in the literature. It was concluded that this excess 40Ar* had been inherited by these magmas during their genesis in the upper mantle, and therefore has no age significance.

So your criticism is completely irrelevant as is clearly shown above. Of course Geochron says they cannot reliably date young samples! Why? Because they have excess argon, of course. Are you really so blind as to think Snelling doesn't know this? He acknowledges it right there above. But he wanted the analysis anyway ... not because he's trying to show that K-Ar dating is flawed, but because he wants to show the correlation of the lava flow to the mantle source.

And he accomplished his goal, in spite of the fact that you and JonF apparently don't even understand what he is doing or what he is saying in the paper. Did you even read the paper?

Then you pull some irrelevant quote from some guy who ALSO does not even understand what Snelling did and accuses him of something totally bogus.

Read my post again. Did I say I'm refuting the specific claims Snelling the Fraud did in your quote? Nope. I said that JonF has got that part pretty well covered, and I pointed you to a relevant site that I thought you might find interesting... And you would, dave, had you read it.

You see: Your honest Christian friend says this about his measurements, in one article:

Quote

How can we trust the use of this same ‘dating’ method on rocks whose ages we don’t know? If the method fails on rocks when we have an independent eye-witness account, then why should we trust it on other rocks where there are no independent historical cross-checks?

And he says this about the same measurements in another:

Quote

This apparent inconsistency merely indicates variation in the excess 40Ar* (radiogenic 40Ar) content. Such results were expected, as meaningful dates from historic lava flows are not usually obtained, which is recognised in the standard scientific literature [60, 61].

of course, the problem here is not the excess Argon (which may or may not exist), but the overall lack of sensitivity of the method. HOWEVER, Snelling obviously shows here that he is WELL AWARE that the K-Ar method cannot obtain meaningful results in recent samples, as all the scientific community does. So, in which article was he trying to lie to you dave? And WHO is dishonest?

If you ever manage to figure that out, Come back to me with accusations of dishonesty. In the meantime, kindly shut your mouth.

Now, as for your "rebuttal" of Jon's arguments, I eagerly await your response, AllWetDave. And while you're at it, try to read the actual article yourself, as you apparently have no idea what it says (and your original claims about the importance of the apparent old age of the rocks prove it).Also, spend some time understanding what "crust contamination" means, and what "xenoliths' are.

Good luck.

--------------A look into DAVE HAWKINS' sense of honesty:

"The truth is that ALL mutations REDUCE information"

"...mutations can add information to a genome. And remember, I have never said that this is not possible."

I see that Faid has adopted the technique of trying to refute the conclusions of a DIFFERENT Snelling paper (1999) than the one I am currently discussing while trying to make people think he is refuting the 2003 paper. Hmmm ... interesting technique, Faid. I'll be happy to look into the 1999 paper, but kindly don't confuse my readers by pretending you are refuting the 2003 paper with supposed refutations of a 1999 paper.

JonF is still yelling "Fraud, fraud" while failing to see how completely irrelevant and silly his fraud claim is. But alas ... what's a Darwinist to do? Honest dealing with facts is impossible for many of them ... so that leaves goofy techniques such as yelling "Fraud" just for the fun of it.

Thanks *ahem* for the hint about the Meramec Caverns. I'm always looking for fun stuff to do with the kids ... I'll go see the stalagtites.

I'm headed to the lake for two days ... sorry to disappoint! I know this will mean a quite boring Wednesday and Thursday for you!

I'll be back at it Friday morning and I will show you in detail why Snelling is right on and ...

JonF is, once again ... ALL WET!

and what will you say to the "kids" about the stalagtites dave?What's your story on those then? How will you twist it round to supporting your viewpoint? How damaged will those kids be after a couple of years of your poison?

And what difference does "what" paper (2003/1999) make, if what's under dicussion is the methodology?

I'm reading this article on the AiG site about a dispute involving the dating of a piece of alleged fossilized wood embedded in sandstone dated to ~225 Mya (which I found from a link from the article Faid linked to). The date Geochron labs (evidently a commercial laboratory, not a research lab) came up with was ~34,000 years for the fossilized "wood." (Strangely, it doesn't seem to occur to AiG than a 34,000 year old date hurts their 6,000 year old young-earth "hypothesis" just as much as a 225 million year old date—it's still a date five times too old for their model to explain, and all by itself would invalidate the model).

But what struck me was AiG's accusations of breach of fiduciary duty to its customers leveled at Geochron labs. Does AiG think this is how science works? AiG evidently views the situation as Geochron improperly disclosing AiG's results to its "competitors."

Now, if science were purely a commercial enterprise, I could see AiG's point. But are they doing science here, or public relations? It looks to me like AiG is trying to hide their methodologies from peer review; why else would they object to Geochron's disclosure of the results they found?

Reading nothing else about the article (which appears to be mainly a response to an e-mail from a Geochron representative), it's pretty plain that AiG is hiding something. Given what has already been demonstrated about AiG's methods here and elsewhere, imagine my utter lack of surprise.

--------------2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity

"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

Well, AFDave is going to be away for a few days, so I'll do my part to step in and play him. Here we go:

I see that Eric is attempting to smear my BY REFERENCING AIG WHICH I HAVE NEVER WORKED FOR. Hmmm ... Nice little backfire on yourself, isn't it Eric. Don't feel bad. Darwinists have nothing else to do but add homonyms to the discussion. Also I see your "scare" quotes around the word kids. What is it about kids that scares you? The fact that they can see through your evobot lies? Kidsfortruth must be making great inroads.

Oldmandarwinlies confuses one paper with a different paper. Hey Oldman, a does not equal b, okay? Geez, you guys could have used an expert self-taught logician like me before you embarrassed yourself. Oh well ... what's a Darwinist to do?

Thanks *ahem* for the hint about the Staligmites. But you should have done your own research first. Staligmites can grow virtually instantaneously!

Quote

‘Instant’ stalagmites!

by Don Batten

The photo records a large stalagmite shawl. A shawl is a limestone formation which has formed by running down the rock, rather than being free-standing like stalactites (which ‘stick tight’ because they hang from the roof) or stalagmites (which grow up from the ground).

Guides to limestone caves usually say that such large lumps of limestone take many thousands—even millions—of years to grow. However, this specimen was found in an abandoned gold mine tunnel near Burrendong Dam in central New South Wales, Australia. This is not far from Stuart Town, the town of ‘The Man from Iron Bark’ in A.B. (‘Banjo’) Paterson’s poem by the same name.stalagmite shawl

The Australian gold rushes began not far from here at Ophir in 1851, so the tunnel dates after that. Since the tunnel cuts through solid basalt rock, it was probably blasted out with a considerable amount of explosives. Such engineering feats were not undertaken by the average gold rush fossicker and so this tunnel almost certainly dates from considerably later than 1851. In any case, the tunnel and the shawl can be no older than about 140 years.

The horizontal tunnel is about 1.6 metres (about 5 feet) high and runs 50 metres (160 feet) straight into a hill. There are no side-tunnels, so the exploratory tunnel apparently failed to reveal any worthwhile gold-bearing veins. The shawl in the photo is near the inside end of the tunnel—in the middle of the hill.

The lesson? Stalactites and stalagmites do not need a long time to form!

Quote

Caving in to realityThe shrinking ’age’ of stalactites and stalagmites.

by Carl Wieland

‘But don’t stalactites and stalagmites take millions of years to form?’ This is a very common question at Answers in Genesis seminars.

Most of us have ventured underground to see spectacular limestone formations like those pictured here. Guides commonly labour the point about the alleged ‘millions of years’ of slow and gradual formation—or at least they used to. Comments from supporters around the world indicate that caverns offering guided underground tours are becoming less confident about the belief that cave decorations need long ages to form. In fact, many have become notably silent about the whole subject.

Creationist publications, like this one, have undoubtedly contributed to this by putting photographic evidence for rapid formation of limestone cave structures into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people. So the average guide must contend with a fair chance that any tour party might contain at least one informed creationist—perhaps even armed with a relevant copy of Creation magazine. For example, the issue showing the stalagmite shawl in a mining tunnel less than 150 years old;1 or the very long stalactites and fair-sized stalagmites in a disused mining shaft;2 or the host of stalactites growing under the Australian War Memorial;3 or perhaps even the Western Australian waterwheel which was frozen in limestone after only 65 years!4

The change is also happening because, it seems, reality must eventually catch up with even the most cherished myth. A delightful recent article in a secular travel magazine5 about a journey down into an Arizona cave powerfully made this point.

The article concerned a descent into a cave called ‘S.P.’ near Sierra Vista, Arizona. It featured comments by and about Jerry Trout, a cave specialist with the Arizona Forest Service. Trout has been a high-school teacher and a geologist. The writer states, ‘What geologists used to believe was fact, in terms of dating a cave, now is speculation, Trout says.’

Trout is then quoted as saying:

‘“From 1924 to 1988, there was a visitor’s sign above the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns [New Mexico], that said Carlsbad was at least 260 million years old. In 1988 the sign was changed to read 7–10 million years old. Then, for a little while, the sign read that it was 2 million years old. Now the sign is gone.”’

The article continues:

‘In short, he [Trout] says, geologists don’t know how long cave development takes. And, while some believe that cave decorations such as S.P.’s beautiful icicle-looking stalactites took years to form, Trout says that through photo-monitoring, he has watched a stalactite grow several inches in a matter of days.’

This sort of thing should not surprise us, since we have the real history of the world in the infallible Word of the God who was there, and who never lies. It couldn’t have taken millions of years to form cave decorations—there simply hasn’t been anywhere near that much time!References

Anybody can see that you evobots have COMPLETELY IGNORED THOSE REFERENCES I PROVIDED. What were you trying to hide, mmmm? Afraid your department heads will realize he hired some F R A U D S ? I'll be unhappy when you are fired for incompetence, for letting a little ol untrained ace fighter pilot disprove all your 'science'.

Quote

Rapid stalactites

by Stephen Meyers and Robert Doolan

Those beautiful stone ‘icicles’ you see hanging from the ceiling of limestone caves are called stalactites (they ‘stay tight’ on the ceiling). The forms you see growing up from the cave floor are called stalagmites. When they meet, the joined pair becomes a column. Sheet-like layered deposits on cave walls or floors are called flowstone.

Although these fantastic features are commonly thought to represent perhaps tens of thousands of years or more of groundwater action,1 there is much evidence that they can form rapidly under certain conditions. For example, Sequoyah Caverns, south of Chattanooga at Valley Head, Alabama, has fast-growing formations. Director of the caverns, Clark Byers, cemented a clear plastic panel in front of some stalactites in April, 1977, to prevent tourists from breaking them off. In less than 10 years the stalactites grew about 25 centimetres (10 inches or one inch per year). On the ceiling of the cave, animal tracks can be seen, and there are fossils of many marine creatures—plus a bird fossil which looks like a chicken. In an interview in 1985, cavern director Byers made no secret of the fact that he believes these fossils are a result of Noah’s Flood.

So how fast can stalactites and stalagmites form?Bat Cave

In October 1953, National Geographic published a photo of a bat that had fallen on a stalagmite in the famous Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, and had been cemented on to it. The stalagmite had grown so fast it was able to preserve the bat before the creature had time to decompose.2

Stalactites many centimetres long are sometimes seen under modern-day bridges and in tunnels. Some stalactites have formed quickly in a tunnel in Raccoon Mountain, just west of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The tunnel was blasted through the mountain’s limestone rock to build a power plant in 1977. Water from the plant’s pump-turbines dissolves the limestone, and stalactites form rapidly.

At Australia’s Jenolan Caves in New South Wales, a lemonade bottle was placed below a continually active stalactite in the ‘Temple of Baal’ in 1954. In the following 33 years a coating of calcite about three millimetres thick has formed on the bottle. The same amount of deposit has formed since development in 1932 of the Ribbon Cave in the jenolan system. At this time pathways were cut through areas of flowstone. Water flowing down the sides of these cuttings over the past 55 years has built up the current deposit.

A photograph taken in February, 1968, shows a curtain of stalactites growing from the foundation ceiling beneath the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Some of the stalactites had grown to five feet long (a metre and a half) in the 45 years since the memorial was built in 1923.3

At jenolan Caves and many other places there are examples of stalactites and stalagmites developing from man-made structures. Like the Lincoln Memorial, the jenolan structures contain cement-mortar which is highly permeable, allowing these formations to develop rapidly. The resultant formation is quite powdery and brittle however.Slow Growth?

The growth rate of stalactites and stalagmites in many caves today is of course quite slow. But even in such caves the current slow rate of growth cannot be guaranteed to have always been this sluggish. Caves and their formations in tropical areas develop much faster than those in more temperate regions because of higher annual rainfall. But many factors, apart from the obvious unknown rate of water drip in the past, influence growth rate.

Stalactites can, and do, grow quickly. A talking point at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the fact that stalactites are growing on the cement wall steps between the university’s Anderson Hall and Gladfelter Hall. Right below the stalactites, some stalagmites are forming. Although only several centimetres high, they have all formed since the concrete stairway of Gladfelter Hall was built in May, 1973.

There are a number of bridges in Philadelphia which have stalactites growing on them. Some are more than a foot long (30 cm), but many smaller examples have also formed. One bridge was built in 1931 by the City of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Railroad, so all these formations are less than 56 years old.

Formations in the hot water springs in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park grow about 2.5 cm (one inch) per year. And there are many examples of rainwater tanks in country areas of Australia that have stalactites growing on them.Conclusion

Because of the evidence for fast-growing stalactites now becoming available, we can safely conclude that the world’s beautiful limestone cave formations may not have needed countless thousands of years to form. These spectacular formations could have formed quite rapidly in just a few thousand years—a time framework consistent with the view that they were formed during the closing stages of, and after, the worldwide Flood of Noah’s time.References

And there we have it! According to the evolutionist geologists, the Lincoln Monument must be 50,000 years old! Thank god absurdities such as this are causing an increasing number of geologists to rethink the failed theory of stalignite gradualism.

[sniping all the science]9) You were shown how the Genesis Record is not an oral tradition, but is in reality a carefully written, eye-witness account and predates the Gilgamesh Epic and other heathen distortions.

I may be misreading what you wrote here, but are you saying that Genesis was written at the time of the events it covers? Jewish tradition has always been that the Torah was written by Moses, and the events that predate him were told to him by God. If your "eyewitness" in this statement is suppose to be God, ok, but are you saying that every portion of Genesis was written down by a human alive at the time of the writing, and passed down until the days of Moses?

Silly me, when i'm looking for more information i generally avoid the links that go to AIG. DOH, i'll know to look there 1st from now on!

seriously, it is not odd how none of that article is "we did, we looked, we examined, we cut the bloody thing in two and counted the rings" it's all "they published, they changed, they said". Do these people ever do their own research? Are they just Copy/paste experts? There's a basic logic issue with these people - if they can insert the word "may" they think they've won it seems to me.

Quote

limestone cave formations may not have needed countless thousands of years to form

so some are not tens of thousands of years old - so what!How does that affect the vast majority of items under question?while looking for more info, i stumbled on the whole crystal caves thing - amazing, more hereCrystal Caves. Now, try showing me one of those that had formed on somebody's porch door!

--------------I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot standGordon Mullings

K. The record of these events (except the Ice Age) was dictated to selected individuals such as Adam and Seth and their descendants and carefully recorded on stone tablets, then passed down to successive generations. Moses eventually received these stone tablets (or copies of them) and composed the book we now call Genesis by compiling these records into one written document. He then composed his own written record of the events of his own lifetime, resulting in the complete Pentateuch.

AirHeadDave thinks that not only did god dictate the events of genesis prior to Adam...TO Adam, but God also gave Adam a metal tool to carve His/Her "dictation" into stone. This means the earliest known profession -- contrary to the wild speculation of evilutionists -- is actually "secretary." Furthermore, after Adam died, others were brought in from the secretarial pool to carry on this venerable tradition, as scribes that wandered about recording each event as it occurred. This is why the Bible is so perfect and flawless, except for those bits we won't talk about. Besides, it's a mystery and who are you to question Dave?...I mean God?

I wanted to further emphasize (and not for the first time) something about Dave's floundering, ineffectual attempts to refute essentially every radiometric date ever provided. It seems to have escaped the notice of Dave (and everyone else in the creationist camp) that every single date, derived from any dating methodology whatsoever (radiocarbon, Ar-Ar, K-Ar, Ur-Pb, ice cores, dendrochronology, paleomagnetism, lake varves, etc.) in excess of 6 kya disproves, in the most straighforward way imaginable, the young-earth "hypothesis" of a cosmos only 6,000 years old. Yet these guys keep pointing to dates (which they evidently accept as valid; at least they've never said they think the dates are completely wrong) in the range of 30-50,000 years. In what way do such dates not completely falsify a "hypothesis" that the earth is only 6,000 years old? 30,000 years is more than 6,000 years just as 250,000,000 years is more than 6,000 years.

Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their claim really is that all dating methods are worthless. In that case, one is left to wonder by what justification do they claim the universe is only 6,000 years old? I've repeatedly asked Dave to provide a method by which he thinks things can be dated, and further to provide evidence that such methods return dates that are always and without exception younger than 6,000 years. So far I've been treated to the sound of crickets chirping.

So one more time, Dave: what method do you accept for dating the Grand Staircase strata (or anything else, for that matter)? And what dates does that method provide for the Grand Staircase strata (or anything else, for that matter)? As far as I can tell, you can't even come up with an explanation for all the dates given by various methodologies far in excess of 6 kya, or for the concordance of those dates using completely independent methodologies, other than to say they're based on "flawed assumptions," without a) saying what those assumptions are, or b) providing evidence that those assumptions are, in fact, flawed.

You claim you believe the Bible is inerrant because the "evidence" shows it to be inerrant. Actually, the real evidence shows the Bible to be grossly mistaken about virtually everything, but in any event, Dave, what methods do you use to date things independent of what the Bible says? The Bible cannot, even in principle, be self-authenticating. It has to be compared to external observation. So how do you validate the dates provided by the Bible, Dave? How do you do it?

Since AFDave won't do his homework, are there any volunteers willing to formulate a detailed hypothesis of the flood for him? It could be quite fun to match the current observations (see my theory of spacetime distortion for the age of the Atlantic basalts).

I anticipate the parts: "Noah actually had a Heavenly Shrinker, allowing him to carry millions of animals in his Arch"."Whilst continents were moving at 100 miles per hour..." "mammals were better swimmers than dinosaurs, and go burried after. Ichtyosaurs actually had difficulties because of their thick bones that made them sink, in this low-density fresh water. The stupid pterosaurs were caught by the Flood while fishing, but the more intelligent birds managed to survive a little longer..."and "just after the Arch landed and the water evaporated [...] limestones were solidifying, dinosaurs were fossilising, and thousand of african swallows sent by noah, carrying sequoia seeds to repopulate the californian forrest that has been devastated".

JonF is still yelling "Fraud, fraud" while failing to see how completely irrelevant and silly his fraud claim is. But alas ... what's a Darwinist to do? Honest dealing with facts is impossible for many of them ... so that leaves goofy techniques such as yelling "Fraud" just for the fun of it.

Actually, and incredibly, Dave has somewhat of a point; there's more to the paper than Snelling's fraud. But not much more ... I'm going to reproduce the entire conclusions section so everyone can see exactly how bizarre it is:

Quote

The Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd and Pb-Pb radioisotopic ratios in these samples of the recent (1949-1975) andesite lava flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, as anticipated, do not yield any meaningful "age"; information, even with selective manipulation of the data. Instead, these data provide evidence of the mantle source of the lavas, of magma genesis, and of crustal contamination of the parental basalt magmas. Subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Taupo Volcanic Arc has carried trench sediments with it -- sediments identical in composition to the Torlesse metasediment basement underlying, and outcropping adjacent to, these volcanoes. Scraped off the subducting slab, the sediments have contaminated the basalt magmas generated by partial melting of the peridotitic mantle wedge at the mantle-slab interface. The resultant andesite magmas rose in the melt column through the mantle wedge, and then ascended through fracture conduits in the overlying crust into magma chambers below the volcanoes that erupted when full.

The Sr-Nd-Pb radioisotopic systematics are thus characteristic of the depleted mantle source, modified by mixing with the crustal contaminant. Variations in the depleted mantle Nd "model ages", which range from 724.5 to 1453.3 Ma, and which are meaningless in this recent (even in conventional terms) tectonic and petrogenetic framework, and the Pb isotopic linear arrays, indicate geochemical heterogeneity in the mantle wedge. Thus the radioisotopic ratios in these recent Ngauruhoe andesite lava flows were inherited from both the peridotitic mantle wedge and the subducted trench sediments, and are fundamental characteristics of their geochemistry. They therefore only reflect the origin and history of the mantle and crustal sources from which the magma was generated, and therefore have no age significance.

By implication, the radioisotopic ratios in ancient lavas found throughout the geologic record are likely fundamental characteristics of their geochemistry. They therefore probably only reflect the magmatic origin of the lavas from mantle and crustal sources, and any history of mixing or contamination in their petrogenesis, rather than any valid age information. Even though radioisotopic decay has undoubtedly occurred during the earth's history, conventional radioisotopic dating of these rocks therefore does not necessarily provide valid absolute "ages" for them. This is especially so if accelerated nuclear decay accompanied the catastrophic operation of those geologic and tectonic processes responsible for the mixing of the radioisotopic decay products during magma genesis.

Now, we know that Davie-doodles (the one in the corner with the dunce cap) can't see how incredibly disjointed this is, but can anyone else in the class see it? Anyone? OK, you in the back with your hand up, Maurice?

...

Absolutely correct, Maurice! The last paragraph is not supported by the data and discussions in the paper. It's actually even worse than that; the last paragraph, claiming that all radiometric dating is wrong, has absolutely no relationship to the rest of the paper!. Here, I'll summarize the paper on the blackboard so we can all see the disconnect:

A K-Ar dating test on samples known to be invalid produced incorrect results. Duh. Fraud.

Isochron analyses produced no valid age and the data clearly and objectively indicated that no valid age could be obtained.

Nd model age calculations are also meaningless since the data clearly and objectively indicates that the samples contain Nd derived from other sources than in-situ radioactive decay.

Analyses of isotope concentrations produced results consistent with those of nearby volcanoes.

The isotope concentrations are also consistent with mainstream theories of mantle-generated lava and subduction of plates.

The existing isotopic profiles of this young lava are inherited from the parent lava. (Since it's too young to have developed an age-determining isotopic profile -- jonf)

Therefore all isotopic profiles are inherited from the parent lava and all radiometric dating is wrong.

Yes, Sarah?

...

True, Sarah, it's difficult to see how anyone could fall for that, but they do. Af "sedimentary tuffs" dave swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The major problem is that they don't understand how age-diagnostic radiometric methods work (although Snelling does, and knows that his last paragraph is bovine excrement). The secondary problem is that they immediately and unquestioningly accept anything that agrees with their preconceptions; they can't handle the easy questions, much less the tough ones. Sad, really, and kind of pathetic.

—and again, Snelling has no explanation for dates far in excess of 6 kya, other than some half-assed stab at assuming accelerated radioactive decay, which is already ruled out by evidence from quantum mechanics.

So even if it were true that no radiometric dating techniques could even in principle produce accurate dates of the rocks in question, young-earth creationists would still be stuck with trying to explain how long-lived isotopes with half-lives in the millions-to-billions of years range could have produced any detectible amounts of daughter isotopes. And more to the point, in terms of Dave defending his "hypothesis," he'd need to come up some method of dating rocks that result in dates that never, ever exceed 6,000 years.

--------------2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity

"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

K. The record of these events (except the Ice Age) was dictated to selected individuals such as Adam and Seth and their descendants and carefully recorded on stone tablets, then passed down to successive generations. Moses eventually received these stone tablets (or copies of them) and composed the book we now call Genesis by compiling these records into one written document. He then composed his own written record of the events of his own lifetime, resulting in the complete Pentateuch.

AirHeadDave thinks that not only did god dictate the events of genesis prior to Adam...TO Adam, but God also gave Adam a metal tool to carve His/Her "dictation" into stone. This means the earliest known profession -- contrary to the wild speculation of evilutionists -- is actually "secretary." Furthermore, after Adam died, others were brought in from the secretarial pool to carry on this venerable tradition, as scribes that wandered about recording each event as it occurred. This is why the Bible is so perfect and flawless, except for those bits we won't talk about. Besides, it's a mystery and who are you to question Dave?...I mean God?

Ok Dave, where on earth did you get any evidence of this what so ever? What's your explanation why the Jewish tradition has always stated that Moses wrote the Torah? Did you find some new evidence that they didn't have available? And why would an fallible human eye witness be a better source than the litteral word of God passed directly to Moses?